Gravelight

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Soon the waxing moon was hidden by clouds, and the wind was rising.

  That should take care of that, Truth thought to herself half an hour later, as she listened to the rain drum steadily upon the roof of Sinah's house. Anyone answering the lure of the Wildwood Gate would be much less likely to venture out on a night like this than on a clear one. The Gate's medium was suggestion: if it truly had the power to yank its sacrificial choices from their miles-distant beds and drag them into its presence. Truth had not seen any evidence of it. And though the human mind was remarkably suggestible, it was likely to think a soaking rain a good solid reason for staying home.

  Truth, curled up with her book, did not even think to wonder about how easy, how obvious, that solution had been, nor how uncanny she would once have thought it to summon storms with a wave of her hand.

  FIFTEEN

  THE GAP IS THE GRAVE

  And my large kingdom for a little grave, A little little grave, an obscure grave;

  — WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  / GUESS I MANAGED TO SLEEP A LITTLE AFTER ALL.

  Truth uncoiled herself from her cramped position on the loveseat. From the light shining in through the fanlight over the door, it was around five in the morning—maybe even earlier.

  Truth got to her feet, doing shoulder-rolls to work out the last of the stiffness. Still not sure what had awakened her, she went upstairs to look in on Sinah. She found the younger woman sound asleep lying in a position that suggested she'd fallen from an airplane. The blankets were on the floor.

  Truth smiled as she covered her up again. No, Sinah's sleep remained undisturbed. So what could it have been?

  Still wondering, she walked to the octagonal clear-glass window at the eastern end of the loft and looked out.

  After the storm of the night before, the sky above was colorless and clear. The second floor of the building was roughly at treetop level; she could see the entryway of the house below, its brick courtyard empty. Mist from the river formed a solid bank of white in the distance, and mist

  hung in the air, blending and softening the shapes and colors. Truth pushed open the window, wanting a breath of the coolness that would so quickly be gone in the fullness of the day. She leaned her head out and took a deep breath. Everything seemed remade, just for this moment.

  She heard the sound of an automobile engine.

  Wycherly, coming back? It didn't sound like the Jeep Cherokee's engine, but she couldn't be sure. Quickly closing the window. Truth hurried downstairs.

  She opened the front door and stepped outside. For a moment she thought the sound was gone, but then she heard it again. It didn't sound like the powerful engine of a four-wheel-drive vehicle, but whatever it was it had to be using Watchman's Gap Trace—there was no other road near enough to hear. The sound faded into the distance again, moving on. Whoever was using Watchman's Gap Trace, the old schoolhouse was not their destination.

  Suddenly an unwelcome suspicion took possession of her. She didn't want to think it, but somehow it seemed so likely.

  Andit won't hurt you to check, Truth told herself, as she ducked back inside to leave a note for Sinah.

  ''Are we there yet?" Rowan Moorcock asked. Despite her question, the redheaded psychic strode up the overgrown drive of the sanatorium ahead of the two men, unimpeded by the weight of her heavy backpack.

  "What do you expect to find, Dr. Palmer?" Ninian Blake asked. Though it was still relatively cool, his long black hair was held back with a rolled bandanna tied around his head, and his face was beaded with sweat. He wore a backpack as heavy as Rowan's, but despite his obvious discomfort, he made no complaints.

  'Tm not completely sure, Nin," Dylan replied. "When I was up there yesterday with Truth, I got a very strong sense that there was something there—and there's definitely a stone altar that's been the focus of some sort of cult activity. I want to take a look and see what else we might have missed, get pictures of what's there, that sort of thing."

  "Which cult?" Ninian asked, smiling faintly at his own might-be pun.

  "Something not all that common," Dylan said, "but let's see what the evidence suggests. I'll save the lecture until we get up there—and down."

  * * *

  Warned by his previous experience, Dylan led them north, on a more-or-less direct route to the black staircase that led down into the depths of the ruins.

  "Whoa," Rowan said, looking down.

  It was a little after six in the morning, and the day's air of peace and serenity gave the lie to the experiences Dylan had borne witness to yesterday morning. But he knew better than to trust any subjective impression in dealing with a haunting or potential haunting.

  That was what worried him about Truth.

  For a woman who had spent most of her adult life emotionally isolated—and Dylan had known her ever since she'd first come to Taghkanic as a lonely and defensive young graduate fiercely determined to quantify the Unseen World and reduce its phenomena to columns of numbers in a printout—Truth was much too quick to trust now that she'd reached an accommodation with her past and her magus-father's legacy. She believed in the presence of a Blackburn Gate—in Quentin Blackburn's continued presence—and in her mission to seal the Gate, no matter the cost.

  It never occurred to her that the site might be haunted by something else entirely—something that played on her deepest desires and hopes and fears, twisting them to its ends.

  Dylan sighed. He didn't want to see her hurt—physically, mentally, or professionally. There'd been a certain amount of talk about her after she'd published Venus Afflicted, even though the book had been scrupulously accurate, containing only the verifiable facts about Thome's life and none of the lurid speculation. But the fact that she'd chosen to write about a magician at all inevitably attracted to her some of the aura of the lunatic fringe that she'd spent her entire adult life lashing out against—and parapsychologists, like Caesar's wife, needed to be not only above reproach, but above suspicion.

  Their field was littered with the histories of those who had crossed the Hne, believing their subjects instead of studying them objectively. His stubborn, reckless darling could end up among their number all too easily.

  And worse, she could end up dead.

  ''The most dangerous place in all the world for an unprotected medium is a haunted house.'' Professor MacLaren's oft-repeated aphorism echoed in Dy-

  lan's ears. Despite Truth's insistence that her abiHties came from training and not inbred psychic gifts, Dylan suspected that Truth possessed the same psychic gifts that her mother and her half-sister did. In which case—if Wildwood Sanatorium were a true haunting—Truth was the last person Dylan would want anywhere near it.

  "It seems odd that the building would burn so thoroughly," Ninian said, breaking into Dylan's thoughts. "Wouldn't it have been built out of brick and stone and stuff? Where are they? And if it did burn, where's the wreckage? It would have fallen in."

  Ninian was still breathing quickly, and he'd taken the opportunity of the halt to slide the backpack containing the recording equipment from his shoulders and lower it gently to the ground.

  "For that matter," he added, sounding indignant, "where's the water? It rained katzenjammers last night; you'd expect a hole in the ground to be full of water."

  "It looks like a bomb site," Rowan said. "Like something at the bottom blew up and disintegrated everything else. Brrr." She hugged herself and shivered. "Cold up here."

  Dylan glanced at her sharply. He didn't feel any chill, and Rowan's constitution was normally as robust as an ox's. But Rowan Moorcock was also an experienced psychic—Dylan had used her mediumistic abilities on more than one of his ghost-hunting expeditions.

  "Anything?" he asked quickly.

  "No ..." she said doubtfully, and then shook her head. "Nothing."

  "Ninian? Any twinges?" Dylan asked then. After criticizing Truth so thoroughly for leaping headlong into psychic danger, he wasn't about to drag his young students into an ident
ical mess.

  "You know me. Dr. Palmer; deaf as a post," Ninian said with a slight smile.

  While that wasn't entirely true—Ninian scored particularly well on tests for psychometry and precognition—it was true that his abilities were far less dependable than Rowan's. Since Ninian was that rarity—an adult, healthy, sane, male psychic—neither he nor Dylan complained too much about the comparative weakness of his gift.

  "Okay. Let's go down, then. Mind the cameras—they cost more than you do," Dylan said.

  "Not since my last tuition bill," Rowan mourned, leading the way.

  * * *

  Truth watched the three figures disappear over the edge of the ruins from the concealment of a stand of trees just south of the site. She'd come here overland from Sinah's cabin, unable to lose her way now that she was keyed—however roughly—to the local Gate.

  So Dylan was stealing a march on her—throwing a little party here to which she was not invited? Truth smiled mockingly. She could not quite suppress the unworthy thought that it would be nice if something he couldn't handle came and smacked him down—that would teach him to dismiss her warnings out of hand like the ravings of a spoiled child!

  A moment later she sternly rebuked herself for even thinking such things. Hand anyone over to the evil of the grey place from which she'd rescued Sinah? Never!

  Truth frowned. Neither the Gate nor Quentin Blackburn seemed to have any Material Plane power that did not stem from indirect suggestion—and Dylan was always going on and on and on about the precautions he took when investigating a haunted house. The place was dangerous, but Dylan was a professional trained to investigate such things. He shouldn't be in any danger.

  But she'd still feel better if she stayed around and kept an eye on matters, not that Dylan would thank her for it. Cautiously Truth stepped from behind the tree and started up the rise to the ruin.

  It took the three researchers about half an hour to make it all the way down to the sub-basement and unpack their equipment.

  The temple area was reasonably large—although there was no real way of telling what size it might actually have appeared to be when it was fully paneled and furnished. Though the floor was covered with powdery leaves from seasons past, so many other things that ought to have been here were not—melted ritual implements, for example. Of course, they could have been looted sometime in the last eighty years, yet everyone the three of them had spoken to in their weeks in Morton's Fork had said that the sanatorium was a shunned place, a place that none of the natives would go near.

  Whether or not anyone had stolen from the burnt ruins, all that remained were the steps leading down into the sub-basement and some sort of opening in the east wall—a tunnel or an alcove. The opening was the sort of thing that you'd expect anyone to investigate, but yesterday

  neither Truth nor Sinah had given it a second glance, as though they couldn't see it.

  Or as if they already knew what was there.

  "Nin, have you got one of the high-powered lamps out yet? I want to take a look at something," Dylan said.

  "Steps," Rowan said comprehensively.

  "Old steps," Ninian added. "At least we know where the water goes now. The floor must be slanted."

  Dylan's lamp shone on a rough-hewn rock wall. Beneath his feet were steps—smooth and shallow and worn, with treads of irregular depth, but obviously man-made. The opening exhaled dampness even in this humid air: the scent of wet rock and fresh water.

  "Can you see the bottom?" Rowan said, arching over Dylan's shoulder and trying to get a better view.

  "No," Dylan said. "The staircase curves around at an acute angle. Let me see if I can—"

  He took a step forward, off the temple floor, and immediately felt a flash of warning strike through him. If the lamp should fail, if there was something down there . . .

  "Let's leave this for last," Dylan said, taking a step back and switching off the lamp.

  Both Rowan and Ninian had worked with Dylan before, and fell into their routines with the familiarity of previous experience. The first priority was to document the ritual purpose of the site: Ninian held the light while Dylan photographed the altar from various angles and Rowan did reference sketches showing the layout of the entire area.

  "Whoa, an actual Satanic ritual altar," she joked.

  "Not really," Dylan said, gently correcting her. "Satanism is a Christian blasphemy—The Church of the Antique Rite claims to be pre-Christian in its basis and aims."

  "The Church of the Antique Rite?" Ninian said. "What would that be doing this far west and in somebody's basement? Didn't they insist on meeting in blasted churches anyway?"

  "And if they did, what would a non-Christian sect be doing meeting on Christian holy ground anyway?" Rowan added. "It doesn't make any sense!"

  "Ah, that would be the Templar influence . . ." Dylan said, falling easily into lecture mode.

  As he continued going over the walls and floor carefully for any signs that might be left from The Church of the Antique Rite's visitation, and photographing some areas for later study, Dylan briefly outlined the history of the cult much as he had to Truth, reminding both of the young parapsychologists that many of the spontaneous phenomena associated with hauntings and visitations could be produced both by conscious intent—as with the group of researchers in Toronto who had created their own ghost entirely out of whole cloth—and by an extended period of religious worship.

  "—but unfortunately any researcher who asks to set up his cameras in Canterbury Cathedral during the Mass is going to be thrown out on his ear," Dylan finished dolefully. "It's unfortunate that religion is the one area in modern life that's still 'hands off to science."

  Dylan was so occupied by the demanding work of searching the walls for marks and inscriptions that he did not realize what was happening to Rowan until she tossed her sketchbook aside and stood up.

  "Got a . . . headache," she mumbled, fumbling in her pocket.

  "Ro!"

  Dylan was startled by the urgency in Ninian's voice—not the younger man's style at all—until he glanced down at Rowan's cast-off sketchbook. The tangled pages were not covered with sketches, but with symbols— elaborate symbols that Dylan recognized, but Rowan shouldn't know.

  Ninian dropped the battery lamp and grabbed her hand. Her fingers flew open, and a small glittering object hit the stone floor with a click.

  Rowan's eyes flew open wide. "What the hell are you doing?" she cried in a normal voice. "I was reaching for a pill!"

  She pulled out the bright plastic box of Excedrin and brandished it at Ninian like an excuse. But the thing that had been in her hand hadn't been the small box of painkillers.

  Ninian picked up the penknife and handed it back to her. "Sorry I startled you," he said, his tone saying clearly that he felt he'd overreacted.

  "Moron," Rowan muttered. "And you broke the battery lamp, too, I bet, dropping it like that."

  "It's all right," Dylan said absently, "I'm finished with the walls, more or less." He picked up her sketchbook and flipped through it, holding it so she could not see the pages. "Rowan, what were you doing just now?"

  I

  GRAVELIGHT 279

  "Copying the engravings along the bottom of the altar," she answered promptly. "You know, sometimes they just don't show up on film, and . . . Jesus," she said, as Dylan turned the open sketchbook toward her. "I didn't do those."

  "Yes, you did," Dylan said. "You'd better go back up to the car and wait for us there. Nin and I can finish up."

  "But I'm okay now, really," Rowan said. "It was just—"

  "Go back to the car now. " His frustration—and his desire to say much the same thing to Truth, who wasn't even here—made him speak more harshly than he might have otherwise. Rowan shrugged weakly and began to make her way back up the steps.

  "Everything all right down there?" Truth asked.

  The basement was almost fifty feet below the surface; Truth was a tiny figure as she stood perilously
close to the edge and looked down. She was still wearing the same clothes she'd been in last night at the restaurant, and Dylan wondered if she'd walked all the way up here in loafers.

  "Dylan?" Truth asked. "Rowan?"

  "Just your average sort of psychic attack," Rowan called back gamely as she started up the steps. Truth waited until Rowan reached her, and helped the young psychic up the last few steps before starting down herself.

  "Anything I can do?" she called from the landing. She neither apologized for her presence nor volunteered an explanation.

  "Yes," Dylan finally said. "Come and take notes—we're going to measure temperature variation now."

  The morning sun—the basements were still in shadow, but in a few hours that would change—and the warm outdoor air made any really conclusive evidence of cold spots or fluctuation impossible to obtain, but Dylan wanted a baseline series, and the complex ambient thermometer was at least a little more portable than some of their other equipment.

  The smaller of the two seismographs sat on the altar stone, its needle lying flat against the stop. The larger one would give them more information, but it would be a matter of great difficulty to get it down into the temple area, and some of the motion sensors and infrared cameras probably couldn't be brought up to the sanatorium at all.

  Despite their recent conflicts. Truth and Dylan worked closely together now, with Truth taking written notes to supplement Dylan's dic-

  taphone report, since all forms of recording equipment were likely to spontaneously malfunction at the site of a psychic locus.

  Dylan watched her closely at first—he knew she was sensitive to the sanatorium's emanations, and he wasn't really sure she'd told him everything about her experiences here. But as far as he knew, all of Truth's interactions with the locus had been deliberate, and she'd be on her guard now.